If we must stick to hashes for threading, can we maybe make it mandatory to always include a reference to the original twt URL when writing replies?

Instead of

(<a href="https://anthony.buc.ci/search?tag=123467">#123467</a>) hello foo bar

you would have

(<a href="https://anthony.buc.ci/search?tag=123467">#123467</a> http://foo.com/tw.txt) hello foo bar

or maybe even:

(<a href="https://anthony.buc.ci/search?tag=123467">#123467</a> 2025-04-30T12:30:31Z http://foo.com/tw.txt) hello foo bar

This would greatly help in reconstructing broken threads, since hashes are obviously unfortunately one-way tickets. The URL/timestamp would not be used for threading, just for discovery of feeds that you don’t already follow.

I don’t insist on including the timestamp, but having some idea which feed we’re talking about would help a lot.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de oh this would be handy! i think my feed’s busted after the migration lol

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Lwt me think on this.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de If we’re focusing on solving the “missing roots” problems. I would start to think about “client recommendations”. The first recommendation would be:

1. Replying to a Twt that has no initial Subject must itself have a Subject of the form (hash; url).
   

This way it’s a hint to fetching clients that follow B, but not A (in the case of no mentions) that the Subject/Root might (very likely) is in the feed url.

Otherwise assume normal behavior. Pretty easy to implement I think.

@prologic@twtxt.net Not sure I’d attach any if clauses to this. My point is: Every time I see a hash, I’d like to have a hint as to where to find the corresponding twt.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Shall I add this to the spec I’m writing? ✍️

@movq@www.uninformativ.de When I reply to a message, I typically already mention the feed. Just like in this very message. I believe this mechanism should work for most replies. But there are of course the odd responses where I do not mention the original feed, but rather some other feed(s) instead to which I actually want to reply. Maybe “forking”, as prologic calls it, would be the better option there.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Kind of, but on the other hand: This twt right here refers to 3rvya6q and your feed, but your feed certainly does not include that particular twt (it comes from my feed).

But my proposal probably isn’t very helpful, either. We have this flat conversation model, so … this twt right here, what should it refer to? Your twt? My root twt? I don’t know.

@prologic@twtxt.net Don’t include this just yet. I need to think about this some more (or drop the idea).